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the FMC column | thee literary doll🩷

@thefmccolumn

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women, studied with pleasure.
literature, fashion & cultural curiosities.
xo, your fmc apologist 💋
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He Who Is A Lover 🍸🍸

The exchange of power reeled me in.

We witness all-consuming Sadik become completely undone by Bilan. Her self-determination, her agency, her self-respect all become tools that help her navigate the Ellis family. She comes into her own and finds what she’s been longing for: belonging.

But what makes Bilan’s power so compelling is that it doesn’t show up the way Sadik’s does. Her refusal, her standards, her agency, and even her desire become forms of power, and they completely crack the mask that has armored Sadik all these years.

She doesn’t undo him by becoming cold like him. In fact, it’s the opposite.

She undoes him by remaining deeply herself.

And for a woman who longs for belonging, she has done an exceptional job of belonging to herself first.

Still, belonging to his family reveals that belonging can arrive in a morally complicated package. It doesn’t happen the way she imagined. It comes like a thief in the night: unexpected, daunting even, with shadows that tempt her light.

She even questions whether her arousal and affection toward Sadik make her like him: dark, brooding, complicated, calculating. She’s repulsed by the thought, yet this is the one area where she finds herself unable to contain her ever-growing appetite.

She discovers the depth of her sensuality, but struggles to understand it, befriend it, and control it.

As a reader, it’s appetizing to witness.

They undo each other in the places they’ve kept fastened to their being, while somehow becoming something that draws them closer to the light.

Bilan owns Sadik.

And for someone who feels like she’s lost everything, that is a balm in Gilead.

——
Bilan is compelling, sensual, and self-possessed, but she won’t stress you out. She has heat, restraint, and enough layers to call for 2 martinis.
——

**note: images belong to their respective owners and are only used for visual purposes.

Page 29, He Who Is A Lover by Love Belvin taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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8 days ago

errrbody snapped. taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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10 days ago

Visual diary: He Who Is a Friend 🍸

I loved living in Bilan’s thoughts. She’s painfully aware of what she’s feeling in real time, especially in the moments when she finds herself giving in. Sometimes she allows it. Other times, she chooses defiance.

Sadik, on the other hand, has this bravado about him that makes him mannish yet strangely endearing.

But Bilan is undoing him, and it’s interesting to watch a “giant” become a man.

What interested me most was watching Bilan navigate the tension between the life she knows and the life Sadik is asking her to step into. She wants love, but she also wants to belong to herself. Cared for, but not consumed. She loves this new world with him, but not at the expense of the parts of her that allows her to keep her identity.

& that’s compelling because Sadik’s world is enticing. It’d be easy to disappear into what he can offer her. But Bilan keeps resisting that disappearance, even when she’s drawn to him because her identity matters to her.

It does make me wonder: when love offers you an entirely new life, how do you decide what gets to come with you—or who? What parts of yourself are too sacred to surrender?

——
How many martinis did I need to get through this? 1 strong one. The series of events at the end had me stressed, chile. On to book 2.

***

**note: images belong to their respective owners and are only used for visual purposes.

He Who Is A Friend, page 150 taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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11 days ago

ISSUE 4

it’s breast cancer awareness month so in honor of it, i present blair inferno. she’s introduced to us in capri, but her story is found in quasim 1-3 by @_jahquelj

no essay from me, but a note from blair lmao

**note: images belong to their respective owners and are only used for visual purposes. taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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16 days ago

bad girl, good human.
OOTN: book club edition by @thefmccolumn

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18 days ago

september had somewhere to be, chile.

it was a slower reading month and at one point i was like??? did i even leave the house? not many pictures were taken, so i decided to use this month’s r.e.p.o.r.t. as a little summer recap. so here we go:

(r)ead — these are my most memorable reads. all the FMCs, in some way, shape, or form, had me throwing martinis back. also a good time to include wynter snow. so yeah, we had a good time this summer.

(e)xpressed — between mexico city and a few bookish events, these were my favorite looks.

(p)layed — omg trying to narrow this down to 10 songs? i played myself. no pun intended. but these have been in heavy rotation, and “As” will absolutely be going with me well into the fall. no half-ass love when a song like that exists!

(o)bsessed — omg i love magazines, y’all. i just discovered @hattiemagazine.co and their issues are so cute!

(r)ecommending — ugh, shameless plug, y’all. these are my favorite essays i wrote this summer. link in bio.

(t)houghts — i really wasn’t gonna post today, but seasonal depression is already trying to come in swinging. so this is my care kit for me & you.

feel free to share a few things you plan to do this fall and winter to keep yourself from disappearing inside your days. 🩷 taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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19 days ago

HALL OF FEMMES | 001
Novel: Sula by Toni Morrison

there are FMCs who are easy to understand and even easier to love. but then you come across those women that are daring, unruly, the furthest thing from darlings in society, and we’re invited to sit with them. sula is one of them.

sula peace, the irony in her name. a woman who found peace within herself while setting the world around her ablaze. a woman who cares less about being defended into goodness nor does she desire to be liked, softened, or rearranged into a morality that makes her easy to love.

an artless artist & one of the most fascinating women ever written.

she is one of toni morrison’s most unsettling questions in human form: what does freedom look like when it has no ceiling and no floor?

welcome to the hall of femmes, sula peace.

#TheFMCColumn #HallOfFemmes #Sula #ToniMorrison

**note: images belong to their respective owners and are only used for visual purposes. taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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23 days ago

another roundup of substacks i read this week.

these were equally fun and insightful, especially as i’ve been thinking more about how desire, pleasure, and beauty have been used against women. and naturally, anything weaponized against women is worth studying, questioning, and sitting with for a while.

read. flirt with the thesis. decide for yourself if this is for you or not. 🩷

cover art is by the one & only @fritzvon taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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a month ago

& when them sites open, so are my pockets. really excited to get into your catalog! & she from flawda like me! @pumpsandpencils407 taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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a month ago

we love turning women into blueprints, then getting mad when their lives expand beyond what we wanted from them.

Ciara (and Tracee) remind me that women who live well should be symbols, not statues.

new essay: Ciara’s Prayer Will Not Come True for You
on desire, agency, and writing your own prayers. link in bio. 🖤 taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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a month ago

9 girls. 9 songs. one Beyoncé.

in honor of the queen’s birthday, i matched each South Kenton girl with the Beyoncé song that feels most like her story, her love, her chaos, or her interior life. 💋

books featured:
star-crossed
keep going
3 the hard way
by your side
wicked games
kismet
stay dangerous // the coldest

from the mind & heart of @jessiebwriting

**as always, images belong to their respective owners and are only used for visual purposes.**

“& I thought I could live without you
Cause nothing I know can break us down /
Cause together we got plenty superpower”

“found a way to let you in
But I never really had a doubt
Standing in the light of your halo
I got my angel now”

““i’m a puzzle, yes, indeed
ever-complex in every way
& all the pieces aren’t even in the box
& yet you see the picture clear as day”

“No I’m not the girl you thought you
Knew and thought you wanted
Underneath that pretty face is somethin’ complicated”

“TELL ME YOUR PROBLEMS
I TAKE HOW YOU FEEL
I SHOW YOU AN EXIT
WHEN YOU’RE RESTLESS, I TAKE THE WHEEL”

“Yes, I do, I think it’s true, I just know I love you /
Is my love a crime? Cause I wanna make you mine”

“Even when you let your feelings get in the way
I still like it, baby”

“Boy, nothing real cam be threatened
True love breathes salvation back into me
With every tear came redemption
And my torturer became my remedy”

“If it all ends and it’s over
if the sky falls fire
best believe me, you will see me
on the other side” by @thefmccolumn

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a month ago

august was a colorful month, ha.

i spent most of the month in south kenton, and even took foe dub to mexico city with me.

my looks were vibrant. my nails were too.

jazmine sullivan, ari lennox, beyoncé, & rihanna soundtracked the month.

i’m currently obsessing over all the fashion x bookish campaigns. naturally.

mexico city remains one of my favorite cities in the world, and if you love fashion, architecture, art, and cuisine, i highly recommend it.

& finally, just a few thoughts on a colorful month. because even with the highs, there were lows. there were gray days, too. and somewhere among them, i learned that gray is still a color, even when it isn’t the brightest shade. 🩶

(essay link is also in bio for better reading experience) taken in Brooklyn, New York by @thefmccolumn

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2 months ago